How Vicki Lawrence Put One Over on Gennifer Flowers : Books: The comedienne tells what <i> really </i> happened when she found her autobiography buried on a shelf at Fashion Island.

There’s the National Enquirer account this week of how Vicki Lawrence “went berserk and tore down a book display” at a Fashion Island bookstore. Then there’s Lawrence’s own version, which she dished out at a literary luncheon in Irvine on Wednesday--and the audience ate it up.

No, she says, she didn’t “hit the roof” and wreak havoc, as the Enquirer alleges.

But, yes, she was really annoyed to find six copies of her new autobiography buried beneath a display promoting Gennifer Flowers’ new tell-all book about Flowers’ relationship with President Clinton. And she did pull a switch, replacing Flowers’ book with her own.

Lawrence, speaking at The Times Orange County’s eighth annual Book and Author Luncheon at the Hyatt Regency, said she stopped by the Barnes & Noble bookstore in Fashion Island recently with her husband, Al, during a visit to Newport. She wanted to see if the store was carrying her first book, “Vicki! The True-Life Adventures of Miss Fireball.”

Displaying the comic timing that she perfected on “The Carol Burnett Show” and “Mama’s Family,” Lawrence told her audience of 500 that after “digging” through the celebrity biography section she found her book on the bottom shelf, “kind of library style,” while Flowers’ book was the most prominently displayed celebrity bio.

“I said, ‘Well, this just won’t do ,’ ” she said. “So I took Gennifer off her little [display] and I put her down on the bottom shelf and I got my books and put them up where Gennifer was displayed.”

When she met up with her husband at the checkout counter where he was buying a copy of her book, Lawrence said, she told “the little guy who was checking him out--who was probably all of 22: ‘Speaking of which, why does Gennifer Flowers have this large display and my book is down on the bottom shelf?’

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“Now, he looks at me and looks at the book and he realizes it’s the same person and he’s stuck for words. He doesn’t know what to say. I said, ‘You know Gennifer Flowers is a bimbo. ‘ Now he’s really lost [for words]. He said, ‘Well, very frankly, I think that’s what people want to read.’ ”

Lawrence paused.

“You know, the Enquirer says that I went berserk, tore apart a very posh bookstore and hit the ceiling, which would be very hard to do unless you’re Michael Jordan,” Lawrence said. “I did none of the above. I simply said to him, ‘This is a really good book. I worked really hard on it and I would venture to say that Gennifer didn’t work hard on anything except “doing” the President and touching up her [hair] roots. . . .’

“I said, ‘May I sign the copies of my book that you have?’ He says, ‘Umm, sure.’ I said, ‘Will you then put them on display?’ And he said, ‘Yes, ma’am.’ ”

She and her husband left the bookstore, Lawrence said, “and all the way up the Valley I’m bitching about people like Flowers and Kato Kaelin becoming celebrities and ‘why does anyone even know the name Joey Buttafuoco?’ ”

End of story.

And what is Barnes & Noble’s version of l’affaire Lawrence?

Manager Tom Sollars said he hasn’t seen the Enquirer and “hasn’t a clue” how the tabloid got its information about her alleged tirade.

“I would have known about it if it had happened,” he said. As for an employee being a possible in-store pipeline to the Enquirer? “I find that hard to believe,” he said.

Sollars said that Lawrence, in fact, “was very gracious” during her visit.

“What she did actually is she found that our biographies are in alphabetical order, and in an eight-shelf display she found hers on the bottom.”

But Sollars has good news for Lawrence: All the autographed copies of her book have sold out.

Lawrence was joined at the luncheon by novelist Michael Chabon (“Wonder Boys”) and TV writer/producer Stephen J. Cannell, whose first novel is a political thriller, “The Plan.”